Quote of the Week: Chan Canasta

This week we focus in the amazing, ahead of his time (and not just one ahead), master bold and charming performer Chan Canasta.

He was one of the first ones in our art to explicitly (and implicitly in his performances) value "failure" during performance to increase the realism of the experience.

Think about it about the powerful psychology behind failures.

We tend to believe in life that success is lack of failures, right?

We tend to believe that everything must be perfect...

Who wants to be a "failure"?, right? Nobody in your audience will believe that you "planned a failure"...

but we can, or be prepared to work our way into a satisfactory moment.

Maybe in a fantasy world (Magic) that must be part of the overall emotion, but in Mentalism we have the wonderful opportunity to create credible Mysteries. We dont need to ask people to join us into an imaginary trip, a new place where "everything is possible". One of the appealings of Mentalism is that we can create this Mysteries in the shared reality (co-reality), and using failures in our favor is a fantastic opportunity to cement this sensation.

Some people are afraid or failures in performance. Yes, nobody wants to see someone just completely failing , of course, especially if they are paying you with money and most important, with their time. Thats no the point, the point is to always be able to offer a real experience, and "real reality" works in the polarity of achieving your desire and also being flexible enough to find the appropriate path.

So, failures allows us to create better impact in performance!

You can structure your routines in a way that you can have theatrical small failures using 100% secure methods (f.e. revealing the 5 of Clubs and not the 5 of Spades, even when you knew that it was the first card) or using methods that are not 100% but having proper strategies to work your routine into a satisfactory state, depending of the context (like the wonderful book test from Chan that you can watch HERE).

As you can understand, both type of failures are just different in the inner reality, but in the outer reality everything must feel the same. Always you need to be in complete control of the situation, always letting people know in non-verbals manners that you are an expert in your performance.

There is a pleasure in taking calculated risks that only the people that take those chances can feel, and I recommend you to open to new experiences, in which you can explore those small moments, in which your performance can feel real, as your own "real reality".

So, this week, go for it and enjoy success in a new manner, knowing that failures offer a wonderful new opportunity!